On Radio 2 today Jeremy Vine had a psychologist and representative from a software company discuss game addiction in relation to World of Warcraft.

A number of viewer rang in to give devastating accounts of the effect of this game on their own lives of their family members.

Is this game particularly addictive- what do fellow Screamers think?

Originally Posted by Worldlife

Computer games have always had that effect, I can remember playing manic miner for hours every night on my ZX Spectrum when I was at school, then later 'Planetoid' (Defender clone) and 'Elite' on my BBC Micro. Didn't stop me getting 10 O levels, 3 A levels, 2 S levels, through university and getting a job which I have held for over 14 years.

The newer MMORPGs (of which WoW is one of the most recent) that have come onto the scene over the last 6 years or so are different as they are much larger in scope, so you will never explore all the content no matter how much you plat, plus being online there is a large degree of social interaction which can be just as much of a draw as playing the game itself.

WRT WoW, a lot of people I know who bought it, got to level 60, found there was no raid based endgame to speak of, gave up and returned to Everquest.

I definitely agree it is addicting. I've had so many friends glued to their screens...haven't seen this since starcraft back in the dormitories back in the day.
I am forwarding this link to them all right now!
THanks!

WRT WoW, a lot of people I know who bought it, got to level 60, found there was no raid based endgame to speak of, gave up and returned to Everquest.

Originally Posted by onomatopoeia

Well WoW endgame is 100% raiding so I don't know where they got the idea of "no raid based endgame"

Back to the topic, yes WoW can be highly addictive - I realised that that was why I was playing shortly before I quit. I wasn't enjoying playing, but was playing anyway

The problem is it becomes almost like work, you keep feeling that you have to put that extra bit of effort in so that you can get that extra weapon or that extra bit of armour or that 1 more boss killed. The further you get into the game the more "grinding" you have to do (things like health potions, mana buffs etc) to get further

It starts to soak up much of your time and for some people it can start to get in the way of Real Life (tm) - I polayed a lot, but there were people who made me look like a lightweight. Some spent roughly half their lives playing WoW (and I don't mean just half of their WAKING lives)

It was when these realisations hit in that I quit - I didn't want to become one of those people

World of warcraft has kept me occupied since beta....so i think its been close to 2 years now.

for the entire first year i played the game non stop and it took away most of my life!

However last month i realised how rubbish the game actually is, raid....raid.....scream at noobs.....raid....raid realised this game has cost me hundereds of pounds....and then i cancel the account after its cost me a fortune.

i like my video games, and i've heard of how addictive WoW is. thats probably why i stayed away from it! this was mostly to do with not destroying my uni life, but i did come across this 10 day free trial, and who can resist that!

so anyway, no-one saw me for the next 10 days, i neglected my girlfriend, and i can count the amount of showers i had on one hand! was it worth it? HELL YEA! but after the 10 days were over, after the initial sheer annoyance and cravings u get to play a game (u know what i'm talking about) i realised that buying the game would be a serious mistake. even though i loved it, i could see it taking over my life. maybe i'm being a bit melodramatic, but meh.....

but anyway, i'm done with uni and now WoW is REALLY cheap, AND the expansion is coming out, so i'm tempted to get it......

thats one of the reasons ive never bought it or played it
i pay for my broadband
so why should i pay to play WoW
when there are lots more games out there that are better and dont charge you for playing online

This game is addictive. I do not look down upon this grand developed product though. Blizzard has made a computergame that is absolute. Evolved since decades the warcraft genre and today World of Warcraft is just to sweet. I have played them all myselfe, was playing alot of games since 1985-1997 i think. From the most consoles and computers, but no game was really addictive, just a short play and then pretty uninteresting. 2006 i tried out a few computergames by boredoom, and they were dull, didnt like playing games at all anymore. Though i got world of warcraft on free trial download, and that one i kept installed. It is a huge game with alot of life, practically a world of itselfe. I only played it being alone though, so 1 hour every other day was usual. Then as i became single, getting all that time for myselfe, i started playing this game more. It culminated in me practically playing this game all my spare time or wake hour. A hard addiction came and all else in my enviroment fell into a mess, all that took my time was this game. Its not the games fault, it was mine. The game is practically to good for us human being to handle somehow. It can move your life completely into this substitute world.

I got to the ironic point where i said to myselfe, either i kill all theese chars, or they will kill me. So i had someone to change that password into a secret one so i had to stop playing.

Quitting to play the game i was expecting almost sweaty nightmares about missing it, but it wasnt any chemical addiction i realize. Instead i just felt so free. Like a prisoner that just got out of a 2 year long imprisonement. Life is wonderful again.

I've been playing WoW for almost three years. The first two years were not too bad in terms of addiction, however the summer after my GCSE's I started playing intensively, and dangerously close to hardcore (most of my time awake was spent playing WoW). With the new school year approaching fast, I promised my self to stop playing the game as I could see the disastrous effects this would have on my future academics.

I canceled my subscription (not my first time doing this), but just after two weeks of school I was hooked onto WoW again and this wasn't helped by the fact that my friends loved to talk about it non-stop at school and whenever else I met them.

My grades didn't exactly plummet, but they were definitely below what I knew I could achieve if I didn't spend most of the time playing WoW or just looking up WoW sites and thinking about it when I wasn't.

It's my final and most important year in school now and I knew I had to do something. I got my brother delete all my characters, cancel the subscription and create a random password which even he didn't know. I and uninstalled and threw the game and CD's away. Right after doing this my first thought was how I'd be able to manage, and like the above poster I dreaded craving for WoW, have nightmares about it and wanting to play it again. Contrary to this, I truly felt free. Instead of spending the whole weekend playing WoW and rushing my homework on a sunday night, I've actually started getting work done earlier and better, with more time left to do other things like simply live a normal healthy life; One that's away from the virtual World of Warcraft.

I no longer feel that 'need' to play the game, to go the little step further in enhancing my character and becoming more powerful. I've tried several times to stop playing WoW, but in my experience canceling the subscription isn't enough. If you feel it's affecting your real life for the worse in a way similar to mine, the best way to stop playing is to simply delete all your characters and get someone else to create a random password. Then uninstall and throw away the game. It's a great game, I will not lie, but it can really get a hold of you and affect your social and academic life, so if you're about to start playing, take my advice and try to keep your playing to a minimum. Or even better, don't play at all!

First of all, I'd like to state up-front that i'm a "dedicated" wow player. Least, I think so. Been playing the game for 2 years now, and I'm not just inventing it like other peeps who want to bash WoW. A lot of people have said that - "OMG wow is so stupid and so addictive i quit it cuz i lost my job and my gf and i failed at school", but in my opinion over half of those people are just angry people who want to say something touchy and omg so "serious" then link it to their WoW - playing friends. Meh, whatever.

I'm not gonna be one of those guys who say "hey i play WoW and i got a gf and a job and i play 3 hours a day and it's awesome! and i'm not a social outcast!" - lies. U can't do scrap in WoW if u play 3 hours a day - let's face it. A raid with wipes in an average guild takes all night. Honor farming takes up your whole day. So let's face it. If you're a true WoW player, u play 6 hours a day at LEAST.

Yes, dudes, I'm a WoW geek. Wooooah! so bold to say. Nope not really, just realistic. And here's something else : I don't see it as a problem. Heck, I gained weight, probably need to shave soon and level-up my real-life cooking skill. Maybe go to work in time, not feeling exhausted after a night of raiding. Even work harder towards finding a girlfriend since going to work (at least where i work) isn't the best place to invite hot chicks to a date. But when I do go home and have some spare time, I enjoy spending it in WoW. I even gave my TV to my cousin who just moved into a new appartment - I don't need a TV.

The dude who wrote that blog had serious issues and I seriously DOUBT they were WoW related. Me, for one, if I hooked up one night with someone and had a chance to get laid again (yay!), I truly doubt I would give that up for WoW. I mean, c'mon. Trading tetris for a girl is a little degrading, no matter how geek u are.

WoW is a complex, intelligent game with a great deal of lore. It's not like an action movie with blood everywhere or a cheap porn movie. For people who can actually taste it, it's elevated and well-constructed. However, because of frustrated people who can't live with themselves and the things they like/prefer and post blogs such as this to whine,mothers/wives/sisters/friends read it and then nag their wow-playing close ones, who just wanna spend their spare time playing something they like.

Take this from a "WoW geek" - the world is full of geeks who spend their spare time doing stuff that is equally stupid (e.g. drinking, arguing with your spouse over nothing, TV, trying to impress girls who have no interest in you whatsoever) but their "addictions" are considered acceptable since they come in direct social interaction (sort of).

I'm not trying to defend WoW, I'm trying to say that people should be allowed to spend their spare time however they want no matter how wrong it might seem to outsiders. In my opinion, if you play ANY pc game excessively and become a social outcast, then the problem doesn't lie in the game itself, rather in the individual. The person in the blog stated that he wasted his life with Everquest and other games as well ( I can't remember ), so how is WoW (or any game for that matter) responsable for his chaotic behaviour? My bet is - it's a social problem, not one of addiction.

Dude, slap yourself, get out of your house and go run wild if that makes u happy. Why play a game if it makes u unhappy? I fail to compute.

But before u start saying stuff like "delete your friend's wow!" ... remember that we are all free to do as we please, drink, smoke, play games, pick up hookers etc.

It's quite selfish to apply a personal case to someone else and try to persuade them to do as u did. If you think they're really doing a mistake, then u must be wise enough to understand that the only way they are going to correct it is by realizing and treating it themselves. Outisde interference means only a violation of one's rights.

Hi guys,
Personally I don't play world of Warcraft, but i have a few friends who do. If you compare this addiction to say, drugs and alchohol (hear me out) its really not that different. Personally I've been into drugs and I've managed to quit a while ago, answer me this... Can you really blame the game, is it addictive? or are the players addicted to it because they have the problems, it depends on the person, some people don't get addicted to alchohol and drugs, I think it depends entirely on the person. And if the person playing WoW is severly addicted to the game then he/she needs some tough love to put it simply.

I've seen some footage of the game itself. To be honest Compared to eve-online or runescape for example it doesn't look all that good, we've all heard storys off people playing the game to an extreme level and making it there top priority over real life issues like children starving hungry or there wifes in labour... and yet they decide WoW is more important. I ask you, who has the problem here?

I know people who have been addicted..bought gold, accounts, yada yada. It's kinda like a disease. They seem to get a weird satisfaction from it. A lot of it has to do with being able to feel accomplished and almost famous somewhere..whereas in real life, not so much.

What boggles me the most are people that get angry at friends or family who need something while they're playing...it's pretty crazy how this game probably has a larger ability all around to cause many divorces.

as such, if your an adult thats ok unless you have dependants, in which case make sure you dont play so much that you loose your job - dont worry about your partner, theyr an adult and can look after themselves.

further to, if your a child messing with a highly addictive game, specificaly designed to be addictive as possible then..............

I am a researcher at the BBC and I am working on a film that is investigating excessive gaming in the UK.

We would like to speak to British gamers (and their relatives or friends) who play WoW for over 6 hours a day or who find themselves in conflict with relatives or friends as a result of the amount of time they are spending playing the game. We're interested in speaking to them whether they are happy with their gametime and want to explain why, or if they feel they are trapped in the game and need help.

I just wondered whether anyone on this forum would be prepared to have a private off the record chat with me about this, with a view to potentially appearing in the programme.

I would really appreciate any help you can provide me with.
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If you have any other queries, or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Wow is like Golf, totaly pointless in the real world, but a real challenge to yourself.

In two years of WoW, I have not played much in Raids,Dungeons or Battlegrounds, nor have i even joined a Guild. However, what does take up a (disproportionate) amount of my time is "farming" stuff, making as much money as possible in the Auction House & leveling my (one, favourite) character up.

I tend to play at every opportunity i can (coz i have paid for it, lol) until my character reaches its top level, & then let my subscription lapse after that.

Roll on the "Cataclism" expansion (for my Xmas present), I will then resubscribe for 3 or 6 months.

Yes, I have "got it in the neck", from the wife for time wasting on many occasions. It was really good fun playing online with my son (before he left home - & the game). There is a lot of truth in that "South Park" WoW skit.

However, I am now retired, with more free time & expecting a bit less harrassment !

i personnaly think that anything can be addictive just different is if its a healthy addictions or not, cause if it dosent cause any problems then why stop but when it becomes unhealthy thats when it need to get checked out like theres romoured to peopl that have died because of wow cause they didnt eat or sleep or even go to the toilet because they are too fixed on the game now i dont know if thats true or just a load of crap